


Cooperation

by PurpleSunrise



Series: California Soul (Cali Soul) [4]
Category: The Last of Us
Genre: Beta Read, Canon Trans Character, Found Family, Gen, May still be reworked when the whole series is tho, Mostly it’s just Abby/Ellie trying to figure out how to be supportive family, Possibly self-indulgent?, See start of work notes for warnings, So there’s lots of discussion about trans stuff, TLOUFemslashWeek, TLOUFemslashWeek2020, Tricky one to tag, WARNINGS APPLY
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:34:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25588339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PurpleSunrise/pseuds/PurpleSunrise
Summary: In which Abby and Ellie try to figure out post-apocalyptic transition options as they co-parent Lev.Can be read standalone from the series, the only context you should need is that in the “present” it’s a semi-established post cannon Abby/Ellie wayfaring with Lev somewhere in California situation. (The flashback is set before they got together.)WARNINGS APPLY: Please read the start of work notes. The series-wide warnings do NOT apply(Sorry dudes, there’s no smut and only a peppering of Abby/Ellie romance or pining here. Normal service levels regarding sexual depravity and perversion will resume in next instalment. XD)
Relationships: Abby/Ellie (The Last of Us)
Series: California Soul (Cali Soul) [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1824577
Kudos: 43





	Cooperation

**Author's Note:**

> Contains strong language and has multiple trans-related warnings:  
> Discussions of surgery  
> Mentions of periods  
> Discussion of dysphoria-related ED (eating disorders)  
> One mention of cissexist gendering of bodily things (in a private Abby/Ellie conversation as an “what not to do” example)  
> One mention of a specific term for an internal body part (in a surgical discussion about what specifically one might remove.)  
> One mention of pregnancy (this one IS in a convo with Lev, to help explain something)  
> The majority of the discussions here are just between Abby/Ellie, they only speak to Lev once they have the options they can suggest a bit more figured out.  
> Also remember that preferred trans-inclusive terms may not be the same in every culture or country. I use the following terms frequently:
> 
> “Bleeding,” “plumbing,” and “chest fat.” These are the better terms in my exp/part of the world, but I apologise if they aren’t great for some readers. 
> 
> Phew! Sorry for all requiring all the warnings, there’s a lot of explanatory dialogue here. It’s a bit different to my other works, but I hope you enjoy reading it!

—

Lev hunts as skillfully as Ellie, and cooks the best of any of them, but he stays skinny enough that Abby starts to worry. She mentions it a few times, to no avail, until the last time when Ellie shakes her head at Abby as she makes a half-jibe, half-serious comment to him over supper.

Later on, Ellie talks to her about it.

—

“I read about this. Even in the old world, guys like Lev would sometimes try to stay as slim as possible, sometimes so bad they got sick. It’s because they worry about where any body fat might go. Plus, if you get skinny enough, a bunch of the other hormones responses shut off too. As far as he’s told us, he’s never bled, probably due to his weight. Most guys don’t wanna have that if it can be helped. If we want him to gain weight, we need to help him find other options instead.”

“What other options?”

“Ideally? Testosterone shots would change where fat is distributed overall, and should stop any bleeding. He might still get a chest fat, though, I haven’t been able to find out about that.”

“Right.” 

“California would not be nice place to deal with that, if he’s willing to deal with it anywhere at all, that is.”

“What’s wrong with Cali?”

“The heat, basically. Guys used to use really tight clothing to squash and flatten out any unwanted chest fat. Would you wanna wear an extra layer or two of ultra-tight clothes all the time in a place like this?”

“Fuck. There must be something we can do. It’s not healthy for him to just straddle the line towards being underweight his whole life.”

“There’s a few things, and it’s down to him and what he wants, most of all. But, well, our attitudes might help. If we have the right ones, I mean.

Like, some people will always be uncomfortable with some of this stuff, but it can be made worse — or hopefully better — depending on how you think of it. So, don’t talk about stuff as “women’s things” or anything. If we reinforce the idea that it’s wrong for him to have them, well, that’s not gonna help.

I think we should try to give him options, but not false hope. We could look to be prepared for some of the medical stuff but we’d have to be ready for him to say no to it without being all like “It was so hard to find this thing” or whatever. The other option is we ask first, not knowing if we can then find what he decides he wants, but then we risk disappointing him. He doesn’t seem to know about any of this stuff, he has his own ways of seeing things because of his culture, and I’m not sure that throwing up possibilities that he might want that we can’t then manage to do would be a good plan.”

Ellie finally takes a breath, it’s clear she’s been stewing on all of this for a while. Plus, she’s a little wary of how Abby might react to what’s coming next.

“Your dad was a surgeon, right?”

As her girlfriend expected, Abby is worried about where this is going, but tries to focus on Lev. “Yeah.”

“He could die, and we’d need a shitton of antibiotics and other stuff, but there’s options that don’t need us to find medicines that no-one’s made in 25 years, at least.”

“Ellie, I don’t know if I could—“

“One step at a time, babe.

Point is that you know some basics, yeah?”

“Some things.”

“He ever teach you much?”

“A little, I wasn’t keen, Mel was his protégée really.”

“Ick. Sorry for the bad memories, babe. You okay to keep talking about this right now?”

Abby sighs, taking a minute before she replies.

“Yeah.”

“So there’s a couple that might be within what we can learn. I don’t think the complex stuff, grafts or anything, is within our abilities, but removing stuff might be. Without all his current plumbing, bleeding wouldn’t be possible, for one thing. And a lot of guys back in the day would have chest tissue removed with surgery.” 

“Can he survive without his, you called it ‘plumbing’?”

“Yeah, ‘plumbing.’ Seems like it was a word that folks found easier than talking over the medical names and the specifics.

As for his survival, it depends. Firstly, of course, we might fuck it up and kill him, so clearly in that case he wouldn’t. Otherwise?” She sighs, “It still depends and we’d need to know a hell of a lot more. 

I started to look up some details when I found some medical books at that store last week, and it seems like there’s different bits you can remove, for different effects. Unless we win the testosterone scavenging lottery, we probably can’t remove the parts that release his hormones, not having enough of at least some type of sex hormones seems like it causes problems, I don’t know how bad until I find a better book. But you can just remove the womb, that’ll stop the bleeding. On the face of it, I think that’s the safest option we could offer him.

It’s far from being able to offer him the world, like that kid fucking deserves, but removing that stuff at least might make a real difference.

Again, though, we can’t assume it’s what he’ll want and we shouldn’t approach it like we’re assuming he’ll want it or he *should* want it. These were common issues, but everyone was and is different. I could even be totally wrong about why he’s skinny. But still, I wanna do as right by him as we can.”

Abby couldn’t agree more. She even finds herself wondering if she can overcome her hang ups enough to make to use of what she did learn about surgery. 

They do a lot more logistical work and research before they talk to Lev.

—

Abby stays within calling distance but out of earshot when Ellie brings it up with Lev. She’s helping him collect his catches and reset the fishing equipment. 

“Kiddo, can we talk?”

“Sure. We can talk.”

“About tricky stuff?”

“What tricky stuff?”

“Stuff about you being a boy.”

Lev doesn’t like the sound of this, but the two of them have bonded enough that he decides to give it a try. His tone is more guarded as he responds, “I guess so.”

“Thanks, kiddo. I wondered if maybe the reason you don’t eat so much and keep it skinny is anything to do with being a boy. I’ve heard that it’s something other boys like you sometimes do, and you know how Abs frets about wanting to fatten you up.”

Lev hesitates. Ellie clarifies the question, “I don’t mean we have to talk about why, just take it as a yes or no question if you wanna.”

That helps, and after a pause Lev confirms her suspicion. 

“I figured. I talked to Abs a few weeks ago about the possibility, told her to back off with teasing you about it. We also talked about trying to see if we can give you other options instead, and we’ve got some ideas if you’re interested.

Know that it’s up to you, though, man. We‘re happy with whatever you do or don’t want, but we wanna help if we can. 

Well, actually, full disclosure I guess we would prefer it if we could do something so you were happy eating more, we worry about you for that, but it’s still your choice and Abs isn’t gonna bother you about eating anymore, promise.”

“What stuff are you talking about?”

“It’s risky, of course, but dudes like you sometimes had surgery. Removing the fat from their chest, or removing the bit that makes you bleed, because some dudes don’t like having that stuff. You’re still a guy to us regardless, but we can try to do that stuff, if you want it.”

“You talked about this with Abby?”

“Yeah, I wasn’t trying to leave you out of it or anything. I just wanted to fill her in, tell her to back off in case that was why you only eat what you do. That was a bit over a week ago. We wanted to research a bit more so we knew what we can try to do if you want and not suggest things we then can’t do, because there’s some stuff that’s just beyond what we could even try, honestly. Was that okay?”

Ellie tries to speak the question with a curious tone, a tone that says “You can tell me if it wasn’t.”

He thinks for a moment. “That was nice of you to think about.”

*She protects me. She sent someone to save me not once, but twice. She brought enemies together to protect me. Now those enemies work together to bring me joy. I feel her love.*

“I don’t want a, what did you call it? Fat chest?”

“Close enough. Abby told you what tissue was, right?”

Abby and Ellie had enjoyed some warm bonding moments when Abby shared some of the less private details of her and Lev’s early conversations. Ellie hopes he remembers the “skin under your skin” because this isn’t an aspect to science she wants to have to figure out how to explain. 

“Yeah, why?”

“So there’s different kinds of it. There’s one kind of it that gives some people the lumps of fat on your chest. If we take it out, then you should stay flat even if you gain some weight.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, there’s risks, though. I can’t pretend there’s no chance that we fuck it up and it kills you, for one thing. Any surgery can go that way, not to mention that we’re not exactly surgeons of the year here or anything. Obviously, we’d try, be careful, but I ain’t gonna bullshit you over it.”

Lev isn’t quite sure what he makes of any of this yet, so he focuses on the info. 

“And what about the bleeding?”

“Ah, so your insides have one bit which is where a baby can grow—“ 

Lev wrinkles his nose at the prospect.

“And that’s the same part that bleeds monthly. If we take it out, then it can’t do either. But there’s even more things we could fuck up around that area, honestly, it’s kinda risky because we’d be near lots of delicate tissue, lot of other important parts of your body. We’ll do it, though, if it’s what you want. I know you’ll need time to decide, and we can talk in way more detail at home whenever you want, I just wanted to bring it up first of all.”

“Okay. Thanks, Ellie.”

“Oh, but could you do one thing for me?”

Lev’s overwhelmed with information and doesn’t seem sure. Ellie doubts her request is anything like what he might be worrying about so she goes ahead with asking.

“Could you go give Abs a hug? She’s hung back so we don’t crowd you, but you know how she worries. I’ll finish up down here.”

Lev smiles at her and walks over to Abby. A minute or so later, Ellie hears the sound of them both laughing. For a few moments, she has some peace. And, if she’s honest with herself, she finds it a lot easier to help raise a kid who already understands the deal with post-traumatic stress disorder than she did a baby.

—

Ellie has been unsure whether she should share some of her knowledge about old-world trans people with Lev or not. Eating issues aside, he seemed content in their set-up, was it worth rocking the boat over? Would it make him feel more normal or more like he was different? His “coming out” — if you could call it that — had been reassuringly simple for him, and she wondered if complicating things was the right move.

~~  
“So how did you guys end up together, I thought you Scar dudes—“

“Seraphite!”

God, this kid could be annoying. 

“Okay, Seraphite dudes, then, hated the Wolf dudes?”

“I had to leave because they were going to kill me. Abby found me and my sister and she took care of us.”

“They were just kids. Who hates a pair of kids, you know?” Abby added, guarded as she filled in her part. She didn’t mention all the Sca—Seraphite kids she had killed over the years, mind. 

“Yeah, of course.” Her tone was sympathetic until she thought of the Seraphites. 

“Fuckers.”

Lev seemed not to be uncomfortable, so she delved a little deeper.

“Er, no offence, dude but... what in the name of fuck reason did they have for wanting to kill a little kid?”

Lev gave Ellie the same answer he’d given to Abby all those months ago. Ellie nearly opened her mouth to query it, what with all the skinhead Scar men she’d seen, but Abby spoke up first.

“They didn’t understand that Lev is a boy, so they considered it against their rules.” There was just a slight hint warning in Abby’s voice. She wasn’t shutting the conversation down, but she made clear that she was ready to pounce in the event of any threats to Lev. Ellie found herself to actually be more comfortable on detecting that protectiveness. She recognised something in the relationship the pair of them had, but she wasn’t ready to see it yet. So she stuck closer to thinking about the topic at hand. 

“Jesus. Those dudes can go get fucked. Can I tell you something, Lev?”

He looked at her with curiosity and just a hint of caution. A lion inside Abby had shifted upward, alerted and ready to intervene if she needed to protect her cub.

“Okay.”

“I never had anything that bad happen to me over it at but I kinda know what you mean a little bit. I’m a lesbian and I’ve had people get all up in my business about ‘sin’ and all that shit. I nearly decked a guy who called my last girlfriend something not very nice because of it. “

Lev looked a little confused. It occurred to Ellie that cult dudes probably didn’t talk much about lesbians. Abby, a little awkwardly, stared to try and explain as the same time Ellie did. Then they both stopped and looked uneasily at one another for a second until Abby gestured for Ellie to continue.

“A lesbian is a woman who is attracted to other women and not to men. It doesn’t mean I don’t have friends who are men or anything, don’t worry. Just that I don’t wanna, er, kiss men and I wouldn’t fall in love with one.”

Reassured that Lev was safe with whatever Ellie was going to say, Abby took in what Ellie has said. She squashed down the part of her that realised she was feeling something about this discovery. Feeling a few things actually. She nearly cut into the conversation, feeling an intense urge to assert her straightness, but she held back, unsure that she really wanted to say that in front of Ellie. If she’d squashed her feelings on the matter down hard, then she must have doubled down on force and technique when she squashed down the question of why she didn’t want to say that in front of Ellie. In the meantime, Ellie had resolved to fill a somewhat uncomfortable pause in the conversation. 

“In the old world, people like you and I were kind of grouped together, actually. There would be events or places to go that were for all sorts of people who were different, people like me or like you, men who loved men, people who might fall in love with anybody regardless, people who were kinda like you are except that they were women, even people who weren’t men or women at all. There was a whole community. I even found this place in Seattle where they had all these books about this stuff and all these rainbows everywhere. I think the rainbows were meant to symbolise us.”

Ellie knew she was rambling awkwardly, trying to indirectly tell Lev that she accepts him since none of them know the words for it. She just hoped he could feel the sentiment she intended as she rambled. 

He could. 

—  


**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, and I really hoped you enjoyed it. I love hearing feedback (good or constructively bad) so please do leave a comment :) 
> 
> A massive thank you to my awesome beta reader who beta read this fic. 
> 
> I already had this work in the pipeline but have reprioritised getting it out and published as part of TLOUFemslashWeek, for the Day 3 prompt: Good Son Fluff. 
> 
> I really recommend to other creators that you think about trying to join in with TLOUFemslashWeek, it’s gotten me trying new things in ways that have been really fun. You can find on the details on Tumblr (you don’t need a Tumblr account) at TLOUFemslashWeek.tumblr.com 
> 
> (If you’re wanting to take part on AO3 and don’t have a Tumblr, you are welcome to send me a Anon Tumblr ask — which doesn’t require an account — and I’ll use my account to ask them to include details and a link to you let work on the blog.) 
> 
> I’m also on Tumblr @PurpleSunriseFanFic


End file.
